Joseph Roth
comprehensive a selection of letters and with an introduction and notes by someone other than Hofmann would have perhaps exposed this wonderful and tortured angry writer to a larger audience.
For his admirers, much of this is fascinating and much repetitive and depressing, Lacking an Englishlanguage biography of the Austrian writer Joseph Roth, MIchael Hofman's selection and translation of Roth's letters will have to suffice for now, The selection ranges from Roth's first letters to his cousins inup to shortly before his death from alcoholism in, One can gather together some major themes in Roth's letters: his tiresome dealings with publishers and endless wheedling for money his commentaries on contemporary authors including Thomas Mann, Annette Kolb, Irmgard Keun, and of course his great friend Stefan Zweig his pining for the lost world of the AustroHungarian empire and his bitter and exceedingly clearsighted vision of Germany and the Germans.
In, Roth wrote, "My socalled subjectivity is in the highest degree objective, I can smell things he wont be able to see for another ten years, " At the time, he was writing marvelous short pieces for Berlin newspapers, A few years later, Roth noted to a friend that "Whats insufferable about Germany isnt the technology so much as the romantic cult of the technology, The most important difference between the American and the German is that the former uses the technology as naturally as a baby drinks milk, while the latter is incapable of making a phone call without lyrical commentaries on what a great thing the telephone is.
" Its as if Roth new the horrible uses to which Germany would put technology in the decade to come, And after Hitler's rise to power, Roth knew very clearly what was to come, and told his friends in no uncertain terms: in a Februaryletter to Stefan Zweig, Roth observed, "It will have become clear to you now that we are heading for a great catastrophe.
Quite apart from our personal situationsour literary and material existence has been wreckedwe are headed for a new war, I wouldnt give a heller for our prospects, The barbarians have taken over, Do not deceive yourself. Hell reigns. " Roth's comments on Germany became increasingly bitter as events progressed, "Dont make comparisons with Germany, Only hell is comparable. Everything, everything evil in the world, becomes noble by comparison with Germany, Germany is accursed, you have to learn to get out of the habit of comparing anything at all to this German shit, "
I was struck by Roth's extravagant praise for the BavarianFrench author Annette Kolb, To Felix Bertaux Roth wrote, "In this context, can I draw your attention to the newest novel by Annette Kolb published, chez S, Fischer Daphne Herbst. It describes nothing less than the last remnants of a cultivated German society, Its exemplary, less a novel than a symptom, last sign of life of people who no
longer exist, " Roth wrote to Kolb herself in:
"Truly loved Annette Kolb, here is confirmation of your great talent, and my great devotion to you as well.
If I could ever have thought your charm led me to rate your work higher than my cruel authorial conscience permits: well now, thanks to your divine Schaukel,I can turn to myself in triumph, and say: you know, you were right about her all along.
She is beguiling IN EVERY WAY! Annette, I want to sayno Kolbbut dont worry, Im only intrusive like this in my initial rapture! I have just finished reading your Swing, interrupting work on my own book, thinking I can read ten pagesand now youve cost me a day and a half of work.
Blissful vacation! How rotten I feel, confronting my own book again! You write like a bird, and I like an elephant, "
I hope some of Kolb's work makes it into Englishthere isn't anything available now, and I would like to get to know this author who is so highly praised by Roth.
Later in the letters, Roth's debilitating love of schnapps becomes a regular subject, In, four years before Roth's untimely death, he wrote to Stefan Zweig, "Dont worry about my drinking, please, Its much more likely to preserve me than destroy me, I mean to say, yes, alcohol has the effect of shortening ones life, but it staves off immediate death, And its the staving off of immediate death that concerns me, not the lengthening of my life, I cant reckon on many more years ahead of me, I am as it were cashing in the lastyears of my life with alcohol, in order to gain a week or two, Admittedly, to keep the metaphor going, there will come a time when the bailiffs turn up unexpectedly, and too early, That, more or less, is the situation, " A sad, early end to a sad life, If there is any mercy in Roth's early death, it's that he did not live to see how terribly right he was about the barbarism of the Germans.
Michael Hofman is a lovely translator, Joseph Roth is a lovely writer, This could be great! sitelinkMy summary post with links to excerpts from the book
What emerges from these letters is a man constantly on the edge during troubled times.
In many ways Roth reflects the turbulence of civilization coming apart at the seams, Ive included a lot of excerpts from the Roths letters and some to him in the links below, trying to provide a flavor of his life as he described it.
As Ive mentioned in earlier posts, Roth was a very complex, flawed, gifted, and troubled man, Even if he exaggerated some of his troubles in these letters, its a wonder that his novels were written under such circumstances, The troubles he foretold for Europe, though, were often accurate, Roths life, reflected in these letters, shows the price of being an émigré, not just from a country but from the world at large,
For his admirers, much of this is fascinating and much repetitive and depressing, Lacking an Englishlanguage biography of the Austrian writer Joseph Roth, MIchael Hofman's selection and translation of Roth's letters will have to suffice for now, The selection ranges from Roth's first letters to his cousins inup to shortly before his death from alcoholism in, One can gather together some major themes in Roth's letters: his tiresome dealings with publishers and endless wheedling for money his commentaries on contemporary authors including Thomas Mann, Annette Kolb, Irmgard Keun, and of course his great friend Stefan Zweig his pining for the lost world of the AustroHungarian empire and his bitter and exceedingly clearsighted vision of Germany and the Germans.
In, Roth wrote, "My socalled subjectivity is in the highest degree objective, I can smell things he wont be able to see for another ten years, " At the time, he was writing marvelous short pieces for Berlin newspapers, A few years later, Roth noted to a friend that "Whats insufferable about Germany isnt the technology so much as the romantic cult of the technology, The most important difference between the American and the German is that the former uses the technology as naturally as a baby drinks milk, while the latter is incapable of making a phone call without lyrical commentaries on what a great thing the telephone is.
" Its as if Roth new the horrible uses to which Germany would put technology in the decade to come, And after Hitler's rise to power, Roth knew very clearly what was to come, and told his friends in no uncertain terms: in a Februaryletter to Stefan Zweig, Roth observed, "It will have become clear to you now that we are heading for a great catastrophe.
Quite apart from our personal situationsour literary and material existence has been wreckedwe are headed for a new war, I wouldnt give a heller for our prospects, The barbarians have taken over, Do not deceive yourself. Hell reigns. " Roth's comments on Germany became increasingly bitter as events progressed, "Dont make comparisons with Germany, Only hell is comparable. Everything, everything evil in the world, becomes noble by comparison with Germany, Germany is accursed, you have to learn to get out of the habit of comparing anything at all to this German shit, "
I was struck by Roth's extravagant praise for the BavarianFrench author Annette Kolb, To Felix Bertaux Roth wrote, "In this context, can I draw your attention to the newest novel by Annette Kolb published, chez S, Fischer Daphne Herbst. It describes nothing less than the last remnants of a cultivated German society, Its exemplary, less a novel than a symptom, last sign of life of people who no
longer exist, " Roth wrote to Kolb herself in:
"Truly loved Annette Kolb, here is confirmation of your great talent, and my great devotion to you as well.
If I could ever have thought your charm led me to rate your work higher than my cruel authorial conscience permits: well now, thanks to your divine Schaukel,I can turn to myself in triumph, and say: you know, you were right about her all along.
She is beguiling IN EVERY WAY! Annette, I want to sayno Kolbbut dont worry, Im only intrusive like this in my initial rapture! I have just finished reading your Swing, interrupting work on my own book, thinking I can read ten pagesand now youve cost me a day and a half of work.
Blissful vacation! How rotten I feel, confronting my own book again! You write like a bird, and I like an elephant, "
I hope some of Kolb's work makes it into Englishthere isn't anything available now, and I would like to get to know this author who is so highly praised by Roth.
Later in the letters, Roth's debilitating love of schnapps becomes a regular subject, In, four years before Roth's untimely death, he wrote to Stefan Zweig, "Dont worry about my drinking, please, Its much more likely to preserve me than destroy me, I mean to say, yes, alcohol has the effect of shortening ones life, but it staves off immediate death, And its the staving off of immediate death that concerns me, not the lengthening of my life, I cant reckon on many more years ahead of me, I am as it were cashing in the lastyears of my life with alcohol, in order to gain a week or two, Admittedly, to keep the metaphor going, there will come a time when the bailiffs turn up unexpectedly, and too early, That, more or less, is the situation, " A sad, early end to a sad life, If there is any mercy in Roth's early death, it's that he did not live to see how terribly right he was about the barbarism of the Germans.
Michael Hofman is a lovely translator, Joseph Roth is a lovely writer, This could be great! sitelinkMy summary post with links to excerpts from the book
What emerges from these letters is a man constantly on the edge during troubled times.
In many ways Roth reflects the turbulence of civilization coming apart at the seams, Ive included a lot of excerpts from the Roths letters and some to him in the links below, trying to provide a flavor of his life as he described it.
As Ive mentioned in earlier posts, Roth was a very complex, flawed, gifted, and troubled man, Even if he exaggerated some of his troubles in these letters, its a wonder that his novels were written under such circumstances, The troubles he foretold for Europe, though, were often accurate, Roths life, reflected in these letters, shows the price of being an émigré, not just from a country but from the world at large,
Who would have thought that seventythree years after Joseph Roths lonely death in Paris, new editions of his translations would be appearing regularly Roth, a transcendent novelist who also produced some of the most breathtakingly lyrical journalism ever written, is now being discovered by a new generation.
Nine years in the making, this life through letters provides us with our most extensive portrait of Roths calamitous lifehis fathers madness, his wifes schizophrenia, his parade of mistresses each more exotic than the next, and his classic westward journey from a virtual Hapsburg shtetl to Vienna, Berlin, Frankfurt, and finally Paris.
Containingnewly translated letters, along with eloquent introductions that richly frame Roths life, this book brilliantly evokes the crumbling specters of the Weimar Republic ands France.
Displaying Roths ceaselessly inventive powers, it finally charts his descent into despair at a time when “the word had died, and men bark like dogs, ”